WiFi Speed Reporting

Discussions in English on using Fedora
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#1

Hey all, first time using Fedora and I’m really impressed. Although I am having an issue with WiFi speed or so it would seem.

Checking my WiFi speed with Ookla and https://fast.com/ I only get between 15 and 20mb download speed. This is very low. On my Android phone connected to the same router from the same distance and frequency band I get 250mb download. My Fedora desktop can also boot Windows 10 and it normally get 180~mb download speed. So the conclusion I’m drawing is that something is a miss with my Fedora install.

My PCI wifi card is the TP Link WDN4800. Dual band 802.11 a/b/g/n Chip Atheros AR9380

lspci recognizes is as

02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

And applies the correct driver. lsmod | grep ath

ath9k                 151552  0
ath9k_common           28672  1 ath9k
ath9k_hw              507904  2 ath9k_common,ath9k
mac80211             1015808  1 ath9k
ath                    36864  3 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath9k_hw
cfg80211              876544  4 ath9k_common,ath9k,ath,mac80211

The maximum speed of this adapter is 450 Mbps, both on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. If I look at the output of iwconfig wlp2s0 my Bit Rate is 324Mb/s

wlp2s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID:"VMBE86611"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.32 GHz  Access Point: 54:67:51:C9:7E:0D   
          Bit Rate=324 Mb/s   Tx-Power=13 dBm   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=55/70  Signal level=-55 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:22542  Invalid misc:54   Missed beacon:0

Could anyone tell me what is causing this discrepancy?

#2

Check the wireless transfer rates:

nmcli device wifi
#3

@vgaetera thanks for the reply. I see some interesting results.

BSSID SSID MODE CHAN RATE SIGNAL BARS SECURITY
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:44 VMBE86611 Infra 11 130 Mbit/s 82 ▂▄▆█ WPA1 WPA2
XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:0D VMBE86611 Infra 64 405 Mbit/s 75 ▂▄▆_ WPA2

nmcli show my two networks 2.5 and 5 Ghz. When I turn off the 5Ghz network and use the 2.5Ghz my speed jumps to 50mb down and 25mb up. An improvement but I should be able to get full speed.

I think the issue is the driver. Is there a way to tell what type of connection you are using a/b/g/n/ac ? I think the driver is trying to use n but the card doesnt support it. Only a on the 5Ghz.

" Though this adapter is dual band, but doesn’t support the 802.11 ac protocol, the 5 GHz band is only for legacy 802.11 a" --pc suggest (link)

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#4

maybe a pointer for further investigation:

questions:

  • is regdomain correctly set ? => “dmesg | grep -i regdomain” (DE ?)

  • wpa2 only feasable apart from mixed wpa+wpa2 ?

  • what are the diff’s regarding streams (MiMo, etc) between your wlan card and the android wifi ?

  • what is the speed, when you hold the android at the position where the antenna’s from your wifi card come out ?

  • what are the diff’s regarding speed in NM and your router ?
    Hint: on AVM Fritzboxes you’re able to see which wpa, speed, MIMO, etc.

  • is a router FW update avaiable ?

  • a wifi measure app to find the right place for your router regarding the “sight” from your pc ?

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#5

Hey All,

thanks for the tips @sixpack13. I’ve booted back into the Windows side and checked my speed. It seems my speed on Windows is also affected. I think the Wifi card is broken or dying.

Wifi standard n is supposed to get bandwidth from the 2.5Ghz and 5Ghz and that pairing gives the extra speed. Being stuck at 50mb max makes me thing 5GHz isn’t working but 2.5Ghz is.

I’ve tried re-seating the card and re attaching the aerials but no joy. A new PCI slot did not help either.

XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:0D VMBE86611 Infra 64 405 Mbit/s 75 ▂▄▆_ WPA2

The results from nmcli above do show that the 5Ghz network is available to join but for some reason it is unable to use it for more than 15mb DL speed at best sometimes even less. Perhaps there is some kind of N mode feature broken on either the router or the wifi card. Further tests will have to be carried out.

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